Surrendering to the punk rhythm of Top Junk

Love, inspiration, sex, living alone, cyberspace, social networking, partying, breaking up, making up, friendship — these are the things disco punk band Top Junk sings about in a head-on collision with current events rocking today’s financial world. In a Top Junk gig, the audience is glued to the voice of Tuesday Vargas as she sings solid, original lyrics she and partner Coy Placido have written in the course of their young lives, words that speak of the realities of living in this day and age. Vargas is also an actress/comedienne in the stable of GMA-7 artists. Most of all she prides herself as the band’s Mama Junkie.

Her voice glides through the concise but hyper playing of Placido, the group’s bassist who keeps tempo in a kind of surreal approach in the way he dishes out the bass riffs over 24 frets and his very personal way of plucking his guitar. All the while, drummer Dennis Leung holds the band together in the course of a song. The main pedal of his bass drum thumps out the multifaceted cadences of Cyber Surrender — one of Top Junk’s most popular songs — and his sneer and cymbals and tom-tom capture each and every note of that song, grip them in a kind of energy that borders on something akin to magic. In the midst of it all, guitarist Tim Panganiban plays in this self-contained world on a stage as he leads into the depths of his notes beyond rhythm, beyond tempo but always in sync with the totality of music that thrives on simplicity, the cadence of energy, the surreal bass riffs that follow his Pied-Piper resonance into a realm only musicians of his caliber — the Top Junk standard — dare tread into and risk losing the world us mortals inhabit to reach that Nirvana of sound, music-making, and sheer fun. It is obvious their individuality on stage creates a spark akin to a big bang that audiences simply love to experience and hear. Frenzy is somewhat off in summing up how fans react in a Top Junk performance. (Also, in the local band circuit, audiences can be difficult and unwieldy when it comes to pleasing them, so that bands that do bar gigs have to work double time to elicit the kind of reaction performers often crave for if they don't want to end up frustrated. Oh, yes it is. Unless of course they pay big money and would like to get their money’s worth in a concert.) What sets Top Junk apart from other bands when it comes to audience participation is the group’s ability to establish a connection that dissolves the dividing line between band and audience. The moment this happens, band and audience become one in the rhythm of sound. This sort of integration — wholeness is the more appropriate term — explodes into a magical realm, a self-contained realm of sound and music. Enthralled… That’s the word that sums up an audience lost in a Top Junk gig. Who wouldn’t be as Vargas croons through Cyber Surrender: Hindi ako sigurado 
pero mukhang type na type mo ako Nasa’n ang malandi kong testi sa Friendster Love is forever 
and ever and ever 
 Webcam romancer Kapag down ang aking server Nagkaka-fever fever fever ’Di maka-log sa Messenger Cyber surrender 
on my computer 
Cyber surrender I surrender Oooh-wooh-oooh Yeah I-download mo ‘ko Matutuwa ka ng husto 
sa aking mainit na site Send ka ng invite Cyber surrender 
on my computer 
Cyber surrender I surrender Oooh-wooh-oooh Yeah We’ll dance together 
my tiny dancer 
 We’ll stay together 
sa space na hyper Yeah woo-hooo Yeah-he-he-hey I’ll never surrender … Outside the Top Junk scene the band members live in their own individual spaces. While Mama Junkie is off to fulfill her contract with GMA-7, Placido plays the guitar for Session Road — a seasoned group in the Philippine band circuit. Leung goes to his nine-to-five gig as product manager for online gaming company PhilWeb. At the same time, Panganiban shucks his rock star aura so that his employer, Summit Media, gets its money’s worth from his own nine-to-five at the special publications department. GMANews.TV: Where is Top Junk headed for? Vargas: I’d like to think that as the years go by we are turning into better artists and better people for that matter. Unlike many of the bands in the live circuit that are not even of legal drinking age, we are old farts trying to make a mark in the industry. This is not purely desire for financial compensation. God knows there isn’t a single full-time rock star here in the Philippines. It just isn’t as lucrative as people may think. Sometimes you end up spending more going to the gig, having drinks, gas money, and what not, than what the bar is giving you for playing the night. We are here for the music. Every time we hit that stage, it feels like we are unleashing a part of ourselves — a sweet surrender, being ecstatic and feverish and being able to hold on to our guitars and our microphones. To hell with what others say, because this is what we love doing, PLAIN AND SIMPLE. Thinking about what the future holds for the band seems futile. We just take things as they come. One thing’s clear though: We will make it happen. 
 
 Placido: Top junk is headed for where everything leads to: change. We change fundamentally as people for better or worse. So we look forward to growing up as good friends because in the end, it doesn’t hurt much to be bound in a soulful and mutual trust between music and the arts, playing as artists… We’d love to be contributors of such positive forces. Actually, nobody knows — it’s the grand scheme of everything — what’s ahead of us, really. How about another gig? Leung: Top Junk is headed for the moon, not because we’re good, but because everything we do is suntok sa buwan! (Laughs…) Panganiban: Our initial intention was to go where no band has ever gone before, and with all the drinks and other stuff we consumed — individually or otherwise — in our group’s three-year existence, I think we were there way before our mark. Do you have the sense that you, as a band, are about to break through from being typically underground within the Philippine rock band scene to mainstream recognition? How is it from the head? From the gut? Vargas: I’ve always approached things head on. I wouldn’t classify us as belonging to the underground scene alone since we’ve done a couple of mainstream gigs already. Still there’s so much integrity in the underground scene. When you play, you know you’re not going to get paid and you also know that most of the time you won’t get appreciated, but you do it — balls out and everything. Placido: There are no expectations from me. Really. That would lead to disappointment. There are many facets of commercialism you could wish to succeed upon, after all. We’d love to get the music across, but there’s no point boxing yourself in an expectation that always turns up different when it happens. Still, the word “break-through" is by far as subjective as “mainstream" or “pop" or “novelty." What the hell am I talking about? Leung: Well, having been around for three years now… I am guessing, yes. Kung hindi pa kami mapansin sa mga pinag-gagawa naming kung ano-ano for the past three years, ewan ko na. Siguro mag-pose na lang kami sa Playboy. Panganiban: Recognition is what everybody wants. It’s a reflection of how what we do affects other people, or if they care at all. Underground or mainstream? I don’t see that much difference, especially nowadays where there are hundreds of bands sprouting from all over. What would you say is the most difficult thing you’ve so far 
encountered as you wend your way through the maze and hurdles of the Manila rock band scene? Panganiban: The bewildered looks and stoic demeanor of the audiences we’ve played for which roughly translates into, Who the hell are these fools? Vargas: The most difficult thing is having them listen to the music. Most of these kids are preoccupied with silly stage antics, catchy senseless lyrics and amateur guitar riffs. That’s fine. I have no objections regarding that so long as it makes them happy. It’s like, Uy si Tuesday ‘yun ‘di ba? Comedy band ‘yan. Or, Tuesday, patawa ka naman. Which is great also, we have a precedent. I am fronting the band so I can’t escape the fact that people associate me with my alter ego that is Tuesday Vargas. But when it’s time to sing and get serious, then it gets in the way. I try my utter best to find the middle ground and use that to my advantage. I make them laugh with the spiels and I rock them out with the songs. Everybody wins. (Note: Vargas the actress/comedienne also went by the name Marizel Sarangelo. In her pre-GMA-7and Top Junk life, that is.) Leung: Having a gig in Kamuning tapos typhoon signal No.3 kaya baha! Bad trip! Lubog sapatos ko sa tubig. Wala pa naman akong medyas sa kaliwang paa! Placido: Establishing a culture around your music. Musicians would always tend to think radical and be counter-culture. In this day and age, every band can sell itself through the Internet — it’s the war for information. It’s harder to matter in a world where everything is fabricated in an assembly line. We’d love to stand out if only for the sheer sincerity of it all. Experience and season has yet much to give. It’s hard getting free drinks. What makes you go on as individuals and as a group? Placido: As individuals, we go on with living: chores, digestion, alcohol, sex, bills, gas and political mongering. We go on as people by day. Surprise! Define life and it’s really bipolar. Here’s to making it interesting because, as a group, we do the weirdest stuff on earth. The kind you wouldn’t want to know. It’s a secret. Panganiban: The amusement of seeing those looks in people’s faces almost everywhere we play makes this whole exercise all the more interesting. Leung: First and foremost, myself. ‘Yun lang. Seriously, the company of my friends. We don’t consider ourselves bandmates kasi… We’re more of barkada in a band. So, malamang the appropriate term for us is barkmates. My barkmates help me go on as an individual and as part of the group. Name three of the most influential personalities or groups — local and foreign — that have influenced you as a musician. Vargas: The first time I heard The Pixies that catapulted me into starting this whole Junk thing. They have this raw human feel that only they can make, so unpolished and unafraid. I also love Blondie. She’s still around and sizzling hot even at 60. Sonic Youth also spits in the principle of the music we want to make. We are a sound-based band. We are making an original moment loosely based on the tracks we’ve heard growing up, meshing all these nasty ingredients into our own style. Much like how Thurston Moore grew up listening to the Beatles when the wall of sound Sonic Youth makes is worlds apart from the Brit pop Beatlesque sound. Panganiban: Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin. Leung: The Police, Beatles, Eraserheads and the best of them all… Top Junk! I really, really love that up-and-coming-band. If were a girl I’d take their drummer home to my mother. (Laughs…) Placido: Goodness. I listen to as much artists that I can and it’s absolutely a never-ending process. The greats are different when you were young, and they’re different now that you’re jaded. If I were to name three it would be The Beatles, poetry and sex. The Buddha — as a symbol of enlightenment — for me IS The Beatles. So, there, I got to name four. How did they influence you? What did they do to you as a person, as a musician, and as a band? Panganiban: I think the real question is WHY did they influence me. They spoke in a language I easily understood. Placido: Much around it comes from philosophy and getting hurt. Then you realize there’s medicine and you persevere to be an alchemist. In the end, the law of relativity is correct. Everyone influences each other. Leung: Basically, they taught me how to love music. Just like anything else. When you love something, you would want to be doing it as much as you can. Right? Just like… you know… that thing… Where do you get your music and lyrics from? Do you have a muse? Describe your muse? Vargas: Coy and I write the songs here at home. Looking at him as my muse makes me want to chuckle. He sometimes wears my dresses on stage and asks me to put make up on him because he rolls like that. One of the great things I love about this partnership is that we are not afraid to be who we are with each other. We say what we feel, and we mean it. So the songs are basically about our lives, what we see around us… most of them observations on past triumphs and tribulations. It’s best to write about what you know. Placido: Being a writer that I claim to be, let me express it in a haiku: Her exotic flame Bothered all over I am. Here, kitty, kitty. How would you describe the magic and mystery of music? What would you be otherwise if you did not become what you are now and Top Junk? Panganiban: Mystery is indescribable, magic is inexplicable. Same goes for this band. Leung: Hmmm, I can’t describe it through words, I know that I gave up music five years ago to focus on my day job but I came back. I really can’t explain why. I still have my day job though and I enjoy it. If I weren’t a Top Junkie, I’d just be a plain junkie. Placido: Music is encouraging and helpful. Like I said, it’s a positive force. There’s no mystery in it, it echoes the truth from the beginnings. It’s everything and nothing. It’s a part of who we are. Friedrich Nietzsche rocks so hard because he said it best: Without music, life would be a mistake. Vargas: There is no great mystery. Just open your eyes and it will all be revealed. We romanticize the world so much that sometimes we fail to see what’s real. Music is the magic pill. We all crave it at some level. We cannot live without it because it makes us human. I am looking into becoming a porn star if all this fails. ----- As of this writing, Top Junk has completed recording an 11-song album and the music video of Cyber Surrender. Vargas and Placido have tied the knot this month and returned from their honeymoon in Paris. Panganiban has left the band after a gig in Makati’s Saguijo. - YA, GMANews.TV